Bufords Cavalry used Spencers?

Very interesting and thank you for sharing. Now you are going to me me look in to this and will thus cause me some enjoyment or some work. Hey I am retire the "W" word in not to be spoken in my presence so just delete the word 'work' from my post.
 
I thought this was a good article on the topic since the anniversary is nigh. any comments?
http://npsgnmp.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/weapons-at-gettysburg-the-spencer-repeating-rifle/

From the linked article: "... Ordnance records of the 5th and 6th Regiments Michigan Cavalry, submitted a month after the Battle of Gettysburg, indicate these two regiments carried a total of 572 Spencer Repeating Rifles and 10,000 rounds of ammunition to the field. The men of these regiments made good use of their Spencers in the July 3 cavalry battle east of Gettysburg, but this was the only place on the Gettysburg battlefield that the Spencer saw action except for those rare cases of soldiers who had privately purchased the weapon."

I knew about these from previous discussions -- but that is not a lot of ammo, less than 20 rounds/rifle.

Tim
 
What Bob said, there were no Spencer Carbines on the field because they did not exist yet. There were Spencer Rifles in the hands of Custers Men.
 
I'm actually just finishing up a book-length monograph on John Buford at Gettysburg that will be published by Savas-Beatie next spring. The first appendix is titled "The Myth of the Spencers". I have just reviewed the June 30, 1863 ordnance returns for Buford's division from the National Archives. Of the 64% of Buford's companies that reported, there was not a single Spencer rifle (the Spencer carbine did not go into production until September 1863). There were approximately 600 Spencer rifles reported in the Army of the Potomac's Cavalry Corps--all of the 5th Michigan Cavalry, and two companies of the 6th Michigan Cavalry--carried them at Gettysburg.

The fact that Buford's men carried single-shot carbines makes the tenacity of their stand on July 1 all the more remarkable.
 
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